One of the most imperative questions all of us should be asking ourselves these days is: How can our relationships with one another make us bigger, more capable, more loving rather than smaller, more defended, more aggressive or sad or afraid? We see on the news every day how likely humans are to hurt each other, to be afraid of each other, to be cruel to each other. We see in organizations how likely they are to bring out the smaller and more defended pieces of the humans who work within them, particularly during times that are as complex as the ones we face into today. So people are constantly asking us about how we manage, here at the French Experiment, to be 8 living full time, 5 more part time, and a steady stream of guests. How do we not get grumpy with each other all the time?

I’ve been writing about the rules that help us out. You can see rules 1 (here) and 2 & 3 (here) to see what we’re intentional about. But Rule 3 we seem to have stumbled into. I call it the No Gunk in the Sink rule, but it might more accurately be called: Care about what others care about. Let’s talk about it in the kitchen, where it’s easiest to see, and then see how it actually happens everywhere.

As in most households, there are some of us who care a lot about cleanliness and others who care less. One of the dividing points is whether a kitchen can be called “clean” if there is gunk* in the sink. Some would think if all the dishes were done and the counters clean, the kitchen is clean. I admit to being in this camp. Others believe that it’s the dishes and the counters and being sure there’s no gunk in the sink. So here’s the thing. I could just carry on, cleaning the kitchen and not minding the sink as I have for my whole life, but that would be bad for others. Or I could clean up the gunk in the sink and feel resentful all the time. But actually, it feels like love to be sure the sink rises to standards that are higher than my own. I see it as an act of friendship now to clean the gunk from the sink, a silent little act of caring.

And this means that the kitchen here in this group house is cleaner than any kitchen I’ve ever used! Even though there are more of us here using our communal space than I’ve ever had before, obviously, there are also more of us engaged in caring for it—and caring (mostly) to the highest collective standard rather than the lowest.

Perhaps more importantly, we have this highest collective standard when it comes to conversation, too. Some of us are more naturally “hygienic” about our conversations than others—some are more careful about having as little gunk in the conversation as possible**. It’s not possible to have an absolutely gunk free existence, but it is possible to get better and better at it. And one of the things we notice is that our collective capacity to have low-gunk conversations has risen as we have paid attention to what matters to one another and have tried to come to the highest collective standard.

This is what great organizations do, too, what great societies do. They say: What matters to you matters to me because it matters to you, because you matter to me. You pray to a different God? Your God matters to me. You eat different food? Your food matters to me. What you care about matters to me.

Of course, this means that our own freedom is curtailed in some way (I no longer exercise the freedom to ignore gunk in the sink). And sometimes that is an incredibly difficult conversation of clashing values (e.g., women’s reproductive rights where many perspectives might be irreconcilable). I still believe that we can have relationships through the disagreement, that the relationships could actually deepen as we learn to disagree well. All relationships require compromise. Deep relationships require deep compromise. Generative relationships create generative compromise, I think. But the higher value is: If you care about something, I’ll try my best to care about it too. I might not agree with it. I might not even change my behavior (some people here love meat, and I care that they get what they want, but I won’t do the cooking of meat or join in the eating). But if I care about your happiness, my cleaning the gunk out of the sink or out of my conversation (or wherever) becomes an act of love that makes me happier too.

*For those not familiar with this term, “gunk” is the various nasty stuff that gets trapped in the sink after you do dishes, some mix of food bits, soap bits, and other icky bits.

**Here “gunk” would be the nasty bits that pollute our conversation—judgement, blame, projection, etc.